October 5, 2015

Querida Familia,

Thank you for sending me those pictures! I was actually thinking about Mom Laura this week and especially during Elder Nelson's talk on the need for strong courageous women in our church. I love seeing all your faces; it always makes my day. Kids look like they're doing great but I'm sorry you've been having trouble with their friends. That's never fun to deal with. Brandon looks really well in the picture, I'm happy that he survived the marathon! Crazy kid he is, that's pretty fast for never having trained. It took my and Russ just over 5 hrs to run it, so he did great! Also, I had no idea that Cristian had a girlfriend! I hope things go well for them. I'm very happy that you guys are still doing missionary work in the home. Those seeds you're planting will be SO helpful to the missionaries that will contact those people in the future. Many people here have never heard of the church or have a very sour opinion of it, so it's been hard to find any people that will listen to us or have an interest. Members are so important in this work!

I've been plowing through the Book of Mormon lately, and I read about 120 pages in the last two weeks. My goal is to have it done by the end of this transfer, but I think I will have it done even sooner. I've never taken the time to read it like I would a normal book, so it's been a really interesting experience following the story this way. I love it and I feel so enlightened when I read it. I've also memorized almost all of the scripture-masteries in the BOM. Not word for word, but I'm trying to be prepared for teaching situations with scriptures that can back up my teaching and bring light and truth to the investigators. So far it's been working great! I love having my little cache of memorized scriptures. I'm for sure going to work on "ponderizing" them more in the future. I thought that talk in conference was really great. I chose DyC 121:45 for my scripture of the week; What's yours!?

As I study and learn more of the gospel, I am humbled by the amazing power and truth that I find. I see much more clearly now that this is a gospel of eternal progression and enduring to the end. I remember one of the Apostles in Conference committing us to pray and ask God what is holding me back from progressing. The spirit brought to my remembrance something that I had been thinking about and trying to work on over the previous few weeks. Integrity. I want to be perfectly upright before God and man, and have my foundation be on truth. That being said, I don't think I've always been 100% honest with myself and others in the past. I don't think anybody is, and I want to fix that at least for myself. My thoughts are drawn especially to school and work. I feel like I gave good effort to do what was required, but I didn't do my very best. I realize that all the times that I was unproductive at work or didn't use my time wisely, I was wasting the time and money of my employers which in turn affected my integrity.

I've also been trying my very best to follow through thoroughly and completely with commitments that are left from our leaders and from the scriptures. That has really been helping a lot, and I see a lot of progression in this. Many times at home when sunday school teachers or the missionaries asked us to do things, I said I would and then completely forgot about it. I am now it the reverse role asking others to do things for the Lord, and if I'm not willing to faithfully act on the commitments left for me; how can I expect others to do commitments I leave for them?

Overall, the mission is going absolutely great, and I'm loving the people and other missionaries here. I feel the spirit and learn a lot, but I want much more than to just learn now. I can study the scriptures all I want, but unless I apply the things I learn to my life then it really doesn't profit me or anyone anything. I want to progress day by day, and I have a hope that someday through Christ I can become like Heavenly Father. I love you guys a lot and continually pray for you. I'm glad I got to be raised in our family, and I can't wait to talk to you in a few months. Tengan una buena semana!

Con amor,
El Elder Jenson